The Fair Deal was an ambitious set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in his January 1949 State of the Union address. More generally the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman administration, from 1945 to 1953. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with the Conservative Coalition controlling Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. As Richard Neustadt concludes, the most important proposals were aid to education, universal health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. They were all debated at length, then voted down. Nevertheless, enough smaller and less controversial items passed that liberals could claim some success.

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States (1945–1953), succeeding upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt after serving as vice president. He implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, and established the Truman Doctrine and NATO.

Truman was elected to the United States Senate in 1934 and gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee aimed at waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts. Soon after succeeding to the presidency he became the only world leader to have used nuclear weapons in war. Truman's administration engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. He rallied his New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election and won a surprise victory that secured his own presidential term.

Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948. When Communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he gained United Nations approval for the very large police action known as the Korean War. It saved South Korea but the Chinese intervened, driving back the UN/US forces and preventing a rollback of Communism in North Korea. On domestic issues, bills endorsed by Truman faced opposition from a conservative Congress, but his administration successfully guided the U.S. economy through the post-war economic challenges. In 1948 he submitted the first comprehensive civil rights legislation and issued Executive Orders to start racial integration in the military and federal agencies.

Allegations of corruption in the Truman administration became a central campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election and accounted for Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's electoral victory against Democrat Adlai Stevenson II. Truman's financially difficult retirement was marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. When he left office, Truman's presidency was criticized, but scholars rehabilitated his image in the 1960s and he is ranked as one of the best presidents.

John Wesley Snyder (June 21, 1895 – October 8, 1985) was an American businessman and senior federal government official. Thanks to a close personal friendship with President Harry S Truman, he became Secretary of the Treasury in the Truman administration. Historian Alonzo Hamby emphasizes Snyder's conservatism, stating that he was:

openly skeptical of New Dealism, broad-gauged social programs, and intellectuals who believed the economy could be run from Washington.

This is a partial list of a few notable figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership was secret. Sometimes political opponents might allege that a person was a member, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.

Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on what many see as the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process, and equality under the law are widely accepted as a common foundation across the spectrum of liberal thought.

Modern liberalism in the United States includes issues such as same-sex marriage, reproductive and other women's rights, voting rights for all adult citizens, civil rights, environmental justice, and government protection of freedom from want. National social services such as: equal education opportunities; access to health care; and transportation infrastructure are intended to meet the responsibility to "promote the general welfare" of all citizens. Some American liberals, who call themselves classical liberals, fiscal conservatives, or libertarians, support fundamental liberal ideals but diverge from modern liberal thought in that economic freedom is more important than equality, and that providing for the general welfare exceeds the legitimate role of government.Since the 1930s, without a qualifier the term "liberalism" in the United States usually refers to "modern liberalism", a political philosophy exemplified by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and, later, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. It is a form of social liberalism, whose accomplishments include the Works Progress Administration and the Social Security Act in 1935, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

According to Louis Hartz, liberalism in the United States differs from liberalism elsewhere in the world because America never had a resident hereditary aristocracy, and as such, avoided much of the "class warfare" that swept Europe.

Modern American liberalism is the dominant version of liberalism in the United States. Ideologically, all US parties are liberal and always have been. Essentially, they espouse classical liberalism—that is, a form of democratized Whig constitutionalism plus the free market. The point of difference comes with the influence of social liberalism, and combines ideas of civil liberty and equality with support for social justice and a mixed economy. Economically, modern American liberalism opposes cuts to the social safety net and supports a role for government in reducing inequality, providing education, ensuring access to healthcare, regulating economic activity, and protecting the natural environment.This form of liberalism took shape in twentieth century America, as the franchise and other civil rights were extended to a larger class of citizens. Major examples include Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism, Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom, Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal, John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society.

In the first half of the twentieth century, both major American parties had a conservative wing and a liberal wing. The conservative northern Republicans and the conservative southern Democrats formed the Conservative Coalition which dominated the US congress in the pre-Civil Rights era. As the Democratic Party under President Lyndon Johnson began to support civil rights, the formerly Solid South, meaning solidly Democratic, became solidly Republican, except in districts with a large number of African-American voters.

Starting in the twentieth century, there has been a sharp division between liberals, who tend to live in denser, more heterogeneous communities, and conservatives, who tend to live in less dense, more homogeneous communities. Liberals as a group are referred to as the Left and conservatives the Right. The Democratic Party is considered liberal, and the Republican Party is considered conservative.

The presidency of Harry S. Truman began on April 12, 1945, when Harry S. Truman became President of the United States upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been Vice President of the United States for only 82 days when he succeeded to the presidency. A Democrat, he ran for and won a full four–year term in the 1948 election. His victory in that election, over Republican Thomas E. Dewey, was one of the greatest upsets in presidential electoral history. Following the 1952 election, Truman was succeeded in office by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Truman, the 33rd United States president, presided over the final defeat of Germany and Japan in World War II, the launching of the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, the undertaking of the Korean War, and the inception of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. In domestic affairs, his liberal proposals were a continuation of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, but the Conservative Coalition-dominated Congress blocked most of them. He used presidential authority to mandate equal treatment for blacks in the military and put civil rights on the national political agenda.

Truman's presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. In mid-1945, Truman helped establish the United Nations as Roosevelt had planned it. When relations with the Soviet Union turned hostile in 1947, he issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to contain Communism; it is often used to mark the start of the Cold War. In 1948 he got the $13 billion Marshall Plan enacted to rebuild Western Europe. Fears of Soviet espionage led to a Red Scare and the rise of McCarthyism. Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the creation of NATO in 1949. When communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he sent U.S. troops and gained UN approval for seizing North Korea in the Korean War. After initial successes, however, American/UN forces were thrown back by Chinese intervention in late 1950. The bloody war was stalemated throughout the final years of Truman's presidency.

During his administration, the nation experienced an unexpected surge in prosperity as economic growth surged following many long years of depression and war. His political coalition was based on the white South, labor unions, farmers, ethnic groups, and traditional Democrats across the North. Truman rallied them to win election in his own right in 1948. His domestic agenda, known as the "Fair Deal," was largely defeated by a conservative Congress dominated by the Southern legislators. Despite wave after wave of strikes in 1946, he at times took a tough line against his labor union allies and successfully guided the American economy through the post-war economic challenges. He holds the record for vetoes at 180, and saw 12 overridden by Congress; Gerald Ford later tied that record. Truman put civil rights on the national agenda as a moral priority in 1948. He made it a campaign issue, appointed study groups, and issued Executive Orders to end racial discrimination in the military and federal agencies. Scholars typically rank Truman's presidency about #6 from the top. His reputation in textbooks was favorable from the 1950s onward. However revisionist historians in the 1960s attacked his foreign policy as too hostile to Communism, and his domestic policy as too favorable toward business. That revisionism largely faded after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Progressivism in the United States is a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century. It was middle class and reformist in nature. It arose as a response to the vast changes brought by modernization, such as the growth of large corporations, pollution and fears of corruption in American politics. In the 21st century, progressives continue to embrace concepts such as environmentalism and social justice. Much of the movement has been rooted in and energized by religion.Historian Alonzo Hamby defined American progressivism as the "political movement that addresses ideas, impulses, and issues stemming from modernization of American society. Emerging at the end of the nineteenth century, it established much of the tone of American politics throughout the first half of the century."

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